As an up and coming Summoner (2k to 65 and Summoning Torque, Eclipse Bite and Nether Blast, yay!) I did some digging around and search-fu has failed me on a real comparison of the damage in Rages with Sacrifice Torque vs. Summoning Torque.

I began to wonder about it because as mentioned above, I'm closing in on 65 for Summoning Torque (I'm going to pick it up regardless) but also happened to have a Sacrifice Torque drop for me in the Puk ISNM recently and it got me wondering about whether Sacrifice was perhaps a better option for Rages (as long as my avatar's accuracy is good enough to be able to miss out on that 7 Summoning Skill from Summoning Torque of course. For higher-level stuff I plan on Summoning all the way for the accuracy.) Another SMN in LS didn't know, but he'd been debating picking up a Sacrifice Torque for a while and was as curious as I was about the answer.

Has any testing been done? I couldn't really even find any hard numbers on the damage increase from Sacrifice's latent much less a comparison of the damage difference in Rages between the two torques, any information or links would be deeply appreciated! (And feel free to sic Carby on me if I missed an obvious link.) ;)

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~75 BLM~ I make stuff go boom! [jedimindtrick]~There is no 75 RDM here~[/jedimindtrick] ~72 WHM~ I heal people in a sparkly shirt. ~65 SMN~ I let my pets do the work for me. <3 ~27 DRG~ I can't get Kriss Kross out of my head. >< //Ifrit server//

as far as i know (don't have sacrifice torque myself) the latent effect will be triggert as soon as you summon an avatar.

it will raise your avatars attack (but i read in discussions about the torque that the effect will only be minimal - nobody seems to have concrete numbers yet), increase the perp-cost for additional 3 mp a tick and will give you a "poison"-effect for -8 hp a tick.

too many negative side-effects for a small increase in your avatar's damage compared to summoning torque. i can imagine that the s. torque can come in pretty handy in situations where you get slept while having an avatar out.

or maybe it can be used to lower your hp when switching to conjurer's ring... but on the other hand i guess it will make no sense to lose 3 mp a tick first in order to save 1 mp per tick later.

hth a bit.

edit: here's a little hint for you. just look up an interesting item in allakhazam's item/equipment section or via searching for it. very often you'll find additional and helpful comments on the item from other players that already own and testet it.

Sacrifice Torque is awesome. Don't leave home without it. Even just for being able to wake yourself up, it's worth the low price of the thing. However, I also swap it in for every single physical Rage BP that I do. The attack boost it offers is very significant, I noticed a consistent 50-75 damage per BP increase when I began swapping it in at Dynamis. No solid testing to offer as proof I'm afraid. However, it only costs you ~6 MP to swap it in for a single BP, so you aren't giving up much aside from the potential summoning skill +7 from Summoning Torque. I suppose if your avatar's accuracy is really horrible, use the Smn Torque; otherwise, use the Sac Torque.

Sacrifice Torque is awesome. Don't leave home without it. Even just for being able to wake yourself up, it's worth the low price of the thing. However, I also swap it in for every single physical Rage BP that I do. The attack boost it offers is very significant, I noticed a consistent 50-75 damage per BP increase when I began swapping it in at Dynamis. No solid testing to offer as proof I'm afraid. However, it only costs you ~6 MP to swap it in for a single BP, so you aren't giving up much aside from the potential summoning skill +7 from Summoning Torque. I suppose if your avatar's accuracy is really horrible, use the Smn Torque; otherwise, use the Sac Torque.

Pergatory wrote:

Dynamis

Ugh... I hate playing SMN in Dynamis. I feel so useless.

Anyway, on-topic: I usually stick with Summoning Torque. I think I have my Sacrifice Torque macro'd for Spinning Dive and that's it.

I suppose if your avatar's accuracy is really horrible, use the Smn Torque; otherwise, use the Sac Torque.

It's not just about not having horrible accuracy; even if you can't eyeball it, the accuracy could easily give more DoT through sheer consistency than the enhanced attack could. Sure, attack is greater for spike damage, but even SMNs don't attack (BP) just once.

It's not a hard rule for summoning magic, but neither is it a hard rule for attack.

It's just harder to pinpoint at what point attack eclipses accuracy. on avatars, since we have a lack of stat details and most parsers aren't geared for pets as well as players.

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"And I'm prepared to passionately argue this point until nothing makes sense anymore. If that doesn't work, then the hours upon hours of whining will." -Red Mage Statscowski

Huh, didn't realize that Sacrifice Took MP too. That's where my MP kept going. I've had a problem in my Rage macro that doesn't always unequip my sacrifice torque and I usually do it when I get around to it (only really even notice when I solo since releasing fixes the problem). Guess I'll finally get around to fixing the problem. >_>

Anyways, I generally have my neck pieces setup like this: Resting: Grandiose Chain Not Resting, not using BPRage: Summoning Torque BPRage: Sacrifice Torque, swapped out for Summoning Torque when the avatar hits.

I've never really not used the sacrifice torque since having access to the level 70 blood pacts, so I don't have a lot to compare, but my BP's rarely miss and generally do a lot of damage so I've never minded the HP drain.

Even now knowing about the MP drain, it's not a big deal since I keep it on a minimal amount of time.

Yeah it drains 8 HP and 3 MP per tick. It sounds like you're doing same torque swaps that I am, but definitely look at getting your macros fixed to swap out the Sac Torque as soon as possible after the BP lands.

Poubelle the Meaningless wrote:

Ugh... I hate playing SMN in Dynamis. I feel so useless.

Seriously? I think SMN is one of the most powerful Dynamis jobs in the game! The difference between having a SMN and not having one in Dynamis can have a bigger effect than pretty much any other job. BLM is the only one that can really claim superiority due to Sleepga II. That makes BLMs pretty important, but beyond that SMN has the largest impact. Properly-applied (read: landing when the mob is at ~70%) the stun from Chaotic Strike will last for the rest of the mob's life, which in most cases means no 2-hour. This can completely circumvent hundred fists, mijin gakure, benediction, etc. which aside from bad pulls are pretty much the only thing that can go wrong in Dynamis if folks are paying attention. I love doing Dynamis on SMN, I feel more useful there than almost any other event in the game. Pred Claws does pretty well there too, not hard at all to break 1000 damage so that's kinda nice for the e-peen.

I have my Sacrifice Torque macroed in for single hit Rages (Spinning Dive and Mountain Buster) since those are all or nothing attacks. For the rest of the Rages though, I stick with Summoning Torque.

However, that's just me. Like many other things for us SMNs, I feel the choice between what torque to rely on the majority of the time is largely up to the player and their playstyle. Trust your avatars' accuracy? Go ahead and swap in Sacrifice Torque for all of your Rages. And like the others have mentioned, at the very least the Sacrifice Torque is a free get out of sleep card.

I used to be in the Summoning Torque camp, but testing but more importantly the addition of the ACP body has made things so much easier for me.

I now use ACP body with a +15 avatar acc augment and swap in Scarifice Torque instead of summoning.

I do miss the more freqent BP crits from the relic body (also a possible mod from ACP body) that resulted in insane BP damage, but as the above poster noted, consistency is king. Though I lose those extra BP crits, I moved up to a higher damage curve on BPs, especially Garuda's Predator Claws.

The real difference now with the ACP body is that It gives me a huge leeway to swap up smn magic skill gear for +attk. On Garuda, I now stack it up, using Hachigana + Sacrifice w/ body. I used to use Marduk's Tiara/Torque for +14 SMN skill and Relic Body.

Wow guys, thanks! You've all been wonderfully helpful- I think I'll definitely mule and hang onto that Sac Torque for future use alongside my Summoning Torque once I hit 71, since I see several of you noticing what sounds like a pretty consistent difference in Rage damage using it.

Thanks again!

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~75 BLM~ I make stuff go boom! [jedimindtrick]~There is no 75 RDM here~[/jedimindtrick] ~72 WHM~ I heal people in a sparkly shirt. ~65 SMN~ I let my pets do the work for me. <3 ~27 DRG~ I can't get Kriss Kross out of my head. >< //Ifrit server//

Wow guys, thanks! You've all been wonderfully helpful- I think I'll definitely mule and hang onto that Sac Torque for future use alongside my Summoning Torque once I hit 71, since I see several of you noticing what sounds like a pretty consistent difference in Rage damage using it.

Thanks again!

Sac torque works best for multi-hit if you can get +30 smn skill over cap, have your 'enhance avatar accuracy relic' , some merits in Avatar acc (2-3 merits) and get the +15 pet acc ACP body. You should be pretty much at or near accuracy cap.

Sacrifice Torque paired with Karura Hachigane on Garuda will make each of her 3 hit Predetor Claws much stronger making the overall BP move increadible.

You'll see less of a return on single hit BP's like Titan's Mountain Buster

If you don't have all the +smn skill and AF/Relic Accuracy pieces, ACP body or the merits, I'd suggest you keep +smn skill macroed in for the BPs. As you ease into lvl 75 and gather gear/merits, you can begin trading off some +smn skill gear for scarifice toruqe.